It’s humbling to face a storm. To encounter something that big, that untamed. That untameable. It’s easy to forget sometimes, how small we really are. With heat and cold most of us are fortunate enough to be able to escape inside where it’s shaded, air-conditioned, or heated. With a little wind, a little rain, or any of the other, quieter weathers, it’s possible to ignore them entirely once we’ve got a roof over our heads.
But a storm? A real storm?
One that sends lightning across the sky in ceaseless flashes? One that dumps inches of hail on the ground in a matter of minutes, ignoring the fact that the “official” start of summer is mere days away? One that comes with cracks of thunder so loud it shakes the very walls we hide behind?
That’s when you remember. You are small. We are small. And that’s alright.
At the risk of making my age (or the lack thereof) blatantly obvious, I’ve been struck lately by the frustrating realization that I don’t have time to learn everything, to explore and study and experience everything that I want to. Not in the sense that I don’t have time right now because life is too busy (well, that too), but more in the sense that I recognize that I have a limited time on this planet and more things to fill it with than minutes in the day.
There are going to be– have already been– things that I can do and would like to do that I will choose not to, because something else takes priority. That’s nothing particularly profound. That’s just… life.
And I think there’s a way to view that as a gift. Or at least to recognize the benefit of having to make those choices. It can provide a certain focus. The fact that our time is limited is what gives it such great value. So spend it well.
I walked outside at dusk the other day, just in time to see a pair of bats swooping and flittering a little way from the house. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen bats. It wasn’t even the first time I’d seen them recently– they’re always around, eating bugs like the awesome pest controllers they are. But something about them just struck me this time.
Bats are really, really cool.
Think about it. They’re basically mice that fly. Sounds like something straight out of a fantasy world, right? But they’re real. As real as you or me. *
There’s so much about this world that’s fascinating like this. Like wind: sometimes the air just moves. Sometimes just a little, just enough to toss your hair or shake a few leaves; sometimes so much that it destroys everything in its path, an invisible force of destruction. That sounds pretty crazy too.
And then there’s the fact that we’re all spending our time walking around on the surface of a large (or small, depending on what you’re comparing it to) rocky sphere that’s going in circles around a huge ball of fire that is millions of miles away but also just so happens to be our main source of heat and light.
Or take gravity, the invisible force that is the only thing keeping us on the surface of the planet, along with everything else, including the atmosphere that we need to breathe. And that keeps the planets all orbiting around the sun. And our whole galaxy spinning around its center.
I have this memory from when I was a kid and our whole family went to San Francisco on vacation. The room (suite?) we stayed in was on the top floor, offering us this magnificent view of the city through a huge window that covered what I remember to be the entire wall and ran floor to ceiling. As you can imagine, my siblings and I, being young and fearless and completely unaccustomed to beautiful cityscape views, responded by plastering our small selves against the glass and staring out at all the everything.
Which apparently made my dad a little nervous, because I remember being gently (if urgently) ushered away from the glass.
And honestly, I can’t say I blame him. Because I rather doubt I would be able to do the same thing today, no matter how strong I “knew” the glass was. Chalk it down to a greater sense of my own mortality, or the realization of just how far down it was to the ground. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I have a true fear of heights, but I definitely have a certain… respect for them.
That being said, I love the views you get when you do get up high. And close to the edge. I noticed this the other day when I was up several floors in some building in LA, and the hallway ended up going along the edge of the building and the entire wall was made of glass that let you see out and down. I wasn’t expecting it, and I felt a sudden excitement somewhere in my gut.
It was a similar feeling to the one I get when I’m in a plan looking down, especially at take-off or landing. When you’re already at altitude it can be easy to just accept that this is what the world looks like through the window of a plane, but when you actually watch the ground fall away or reach up to meet you, that illusion gets shattered. And it’s amazing.
I’m not sure where I’m going with this, except to try to put down my thoughts on something that clearly touches some deeper part of me. As a writer, there’s always value in finding these things, because once you realize it, it’s easier to synthesize it and draw connections to other things. I’m never going to ride a gryphon through the clouds, but I’ve ridden a horse at a gallop and I’ve flown in a plane– so I can imagine what it must be like.
Or maybe something just took my breath away, and I want to share it with all of you.
Last week, WordPress sent me a friendly little message congratulating me on the one year anniversary of this blog, which left me simultaneously wondering where the time had gone and how it had only been a single year. To everyone who’s run across my adventures and stories and random musings during the last fifty two weeks, thank you all so very much. I can’t even begin to say how much your support means to me.
Going forward, I definitely plan to continue posting weekly on Fridays, but I’d love to hear from all of you regarding what you’d be interested in seeing. More writing prompts? More stories (I’d like that too…)? Book reviews? Thoughts on what it’s like for a former English Major to embark in a career in the medical field?
Please post your thoughts below! I’d love to hear from you, and I look forward to another year of sharing my nerdy speculations and silly adventures.
F.A. Hakimian 